At 3:02 PM +0200 10/18/99, Wieland Willker wrote:
>Whenever I come across this sentence:
>Jo 19:25
>EISTHKEISAN DE PARA TW STAURW TOU IHSOU H MHTHR AUTOU KAI H ADELFH THS
>MHTROS AUTOU MARIA H TOU KLWPA KAI MARIA H MAGDALHNH
>
>I am reminded of a discussion on Crosstalk:
>1. How many women?
>2. How are they related?
>
>Besides other considerations: What can be said about the Greek grammatical
>structure of this sentence? What is probable from a grammatical point of
>view? Do we have examples from non christian sources that could help us
>here?

And of course you don't punctuate to give any clues as to how YOU read it,
but I think that's fair enough, considering the nature of your question.
And I see the problem

It does appear that we have three names connected by intervening KAI's; it
also appears that the second one ought to be "the sister of his mother,
Mary daughter of Klopas"; but if that is so, then the sister is related to
Jesus' mother as the daughter of an earlier or later husband (Clopas) of
Mary's mother, for surely MARIA hH TOU KLWPA must stand in apposition to hH
ADELFH THS MHTROS AUTOU.

With that understanding of the construction, I'd say there are three women
and that the first two or related as half-sisters with a common mother.
It's interesting that there's no problem here of agreement, as the
pluperfect third plural comes right at the head: "And there were standing
beside the cross of Jesus, (1) his mother, and (2) his mother's sister,
Mary daughter of Clopas, and (3) Maria of Magdala."